OPINION:
The fact that 87% of African Americans voted Democratic in the 2020 presidential election makes me wonder just when the Republican Party lost the Black vote.
It wasn’t in 1854, when the Republican Party was founded for the purpose of ending slavery. It wasn’t when 110,000 Union soldiers died in battle under the command of our first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, or in 1865, when 100% of Republicans (and just 23% of Democrats) voted for the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery.
It wasn’t in 1868, when 94% of Republicans (and not a single Democrat) voted for the 14th Amendment, granting former slaves citizenship. Nor was it in 1870, when 100% of Republicans (and again, no Democrats) voted for the 15th Amendment, which gave Black people voting rights. And it certainly wasn’t in the early 1940s, when Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd recruited for the Ku Klux Klan.
Oddly, a major shift occurred in 1964 despite 25% more Republicans than Democrats voting for the Civil Rights Act. (The Democrats even led a 60-day filibuster against the measure.)
There are thousands of beautiful stories of neighbors and co-workers of all racial backgrounds across our country working together every day to solve problems. The mainstream media pass them over and instead select the most negative stories to spin into a crisis for the sake of ratings. “White privilege” diminishes sacrifices made by our ancestors against incredible odds so that one day we might all have a better life.
We must remember what 90-year-old anti-racism educator Jane Elliott tells her students, “There’s only one race: the human race.”
BEN FURLEIGH
Port Charlotte, Florida
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